22:26 Sun.
1 Sep, 2013

Going on a trip

Day 24 , 123 remain
Lulea , Sweden
16 °C
Fair
5:06 am
7:53 pm

On Friday morning we had a tour of Luleå city (centre). Our tour guide was a person from LURC so he showed as some commodities (cheapest barber’s salon etc.) along the way. After the tour we visited the city hall which is one of the highest building in the city. We were allowed to go on the roof where the view is amazing. After that, we were greeted with by few people of the city council, sadly mayor was missing because he was in Finland. They gave us some free promotional stuff and then we were off to a nice lunch, which was paid for by Luleå (mayor). The lunch was really really good, it was a self-service in regard that you picked up as much food as you wanted and drinks were on the house as well. If I compare it with welcome dinner; it wasn’t as fancy but it must have cost a fortune nonetheless (we are around 250 exchange students after all).

Luleaå's church
Luleaå’s church
Panorama overlooking Luleå's harbor
Panorama overlooking Luleå’s harbor
Luleå downtown panorama
Luleå downtown panorama

In the evening we had a “tetrathlon” on a nearby field. We played some made up Swedish games, which were really weird. I don’t know who comes up with this games but they are either weird or disgusting.

Allen running toward his team.
Allen running toward his team.

On Saturday morning we had a trip planned to rapids in Storforsen. It is an hour and ten drive with a bus. Interesting fact; we had to fasten our seatbelts on the bus, you usually don’t see that in Slovenia.
The river was wide and the rapids very strong and long. We took some pictures of them and then we went to one BBQ place (which were all around the “park”). While we were eating/chatting by the fire, some people went swimming (not in the rapids of course) but on a nearby pool of calm water. I’m not sure why they can’t feel cold.

Squirrel in the city center
Squirrel in the city center

In the evening we had a welcome dinner. We had to dress as a Swedish icons so there were quite a lot Pippi Långstrump and hockey player. I went as a king of Sweden.

The dinner was really fancy (I’m not sure if it was prepared by university kitchen staff), there were 3 courses, appetiser, main dish and dessert. I didn’t bring camera with me so you’ll have to satisfy with my description of the dishes.

    • Appetizer: Canapé with smoked salmon salad, fresh herbs and lemon vinaigrette
    • Main course: Marinated chicken with ratatouille & baked potato gratinated with cheese
    • Dessert: Chocolate & coconut cake with raspberry cream

The food was really good, but the portions were quite small, it looked like those meals in fancy restaurants. You could probably put whole appetizer and dessert in your mouth in one big bite and main course consisted of half potato and one chicken breast.

While we were eating/waiting for next course we had some entertainment program, LURC guys had a sketch were they showed how a typical Swedish person behaves (stereotypically shy) it was really funny, later we had a male choir who sang 2 songs in Swedish and lastly a song I understood: “The final countdown”.

It actually sounded very good. Later there was a girls’ choir as well, among the song they sang I recognized the Harry Potter theme song and a “Help!” from beatles (if I remember correctly).

Later we had a treasure hunt which we (our table) actually won (I still don’t know how), and finale from previous game nights. There were some performances from exchange students as well.

Today we only had a relaxing picnic where we hang out and chat. Tomorrow school starts. Tomorrow I only have Swedish course so I’ll have to wait until Tuesday for “real” school to start.

21:26 Tue.
20 Aug, 2013

Meeting new folks

Day 12 , 135 remain
Lulea , Sweden
15 °C
Fair
4:25 am
8:38 pm

The days up here are getting short really fast. Now you can barely see horizon at the darkest of the night and the sunset is well before 9pm already. This morning (or rather middle of night) the sky was coloured with really nice blue gradient. Exposure was around 10s, so the picture looks much lighter than it was in reality, but the sky is approximately the same colour, although I don’t know where those concentric circles came from.

Night sky in Luleå
Night sky in Luleå

At around 11am I and my only (for now) roommate, whose name I finally know, went to the university where we had “get to know each other” picnic. Well it wasn’t really picnic for say … When we were to go outside it started to rain so we sat in the lobby and talked, while too many people were eating salads (come on, you don’t eat salad on picnic 🙂 ). After about an hour the sky cleared so we were able to go outside. We went on a nearby field where we played some (Swedish) games.

Oh yeah, and for socializing part, I found out there are really a lot of Germans here with Erasmus and I met another Slovenian. It was quite funny actually as I didn’t know he was Slovenian and all of a sudden someone says something to me in Slovenian, I must have looked confused because everyone laughed then and he repeated sentence in English, it turns out we actually go to the same faculty in Slovenia.

Winning team
Winning team
Swedes
Swedes taking care of us. Look at the hair. 🙂

Later this evening another Slovenian, this one I know, came here. He’s name is Nejc.